Big credit card bills are supposed to show up after the holiday shopping season. This year, Christmas came early.
\n\nJust one week after affordability took center stage in the midterm elections, fresh data shows Americans are heading into the holiday shopping season saddled with record credit card balances.
\n\nAmericans’ total credit card debt hit $1.29 trillion in the three months that ended in September — a rise of $22 billion over that period, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s latest quarterly report on household debt and credit. That’s 67% higher compared with the first quarter of 2021, when pandemic restrictions limited spending on things like travel and dining out.
\n\n“The consumer is in a fragile state,” Steve Cahillane, the CEO of Kraft Heinz, said on the company’s quarterly earnings call this month. He said the company, which makes everything from ketchup to cream cheese, plans to hold off on significant price increases “in order to meet the consumers where they are.”
\n\nTotal household debt, which includes mortgages, student and auto loans, credit cards, home equity lines of credit and other borrowing, rose by $334 billion in the third quarter to $19.1 trillion. That’s $5 trillion more than…
Original source: https://www.nbcnews.com/